I can appreciate that Noyes is showing us a lot of the less positive sides of Barnum. Yes, we get stories about performers who earned respect, who had solid public lives. But we also get stories here of how he dismissed or used those in his inner circle, members of his immediate family who he mocked and belittled or ignored.

This was an odd book with several different short stories told from varying perspectives. It lacked a great deal of the pizzazz and showmanship that the recent movie brought to the story. Unfortunately the stories were rather dull and drab and the book a bit of a chore to finish. Other than to cash in on the recent film I'm not sure of the purpose of the book.

Could not get into this book, so full disclosure I abandoned it at about 40%. I received an e-ARC through Net Galley and really wanted to finish is so I could leave a full and honest review, but there’s just too many other things I want to read. The flow maybe better in physical format but it seemed really disjointed on Kindle. I thought this was a story of Tom Thumb but maybe I’m not remembering the synopsis correctly. At any rate, it feels more like short stories that share characters but don’t feel connected. I have a hard time connecting with characters in short stories anyways so this just isn’t grabbing my attention. I feel like like the content could make for a spectacular story if done differently. The writing style isn’t bad and reads relatively quickly, I think someone that enjoys the style would enjoy this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy!

Did not finish - I could not connect with it I decided to put it down.

This book is incredibly boring. I feel like it should have been take into consideration a little more just how popular the musical the Greatest Showman has become before writing a book like this and not doing it incredibly well. The stories don’t seem to have much of a point except to focus on a character and then promptly kill that same character. I understand that it’s historical fiction, but in that same vein, a lot of creativity can be had when “fiction” is involved, and this book just doesn’t have any.

This could have been spectacular.

“Never is the joke on you, my boy. Remember that. The power is yours. Count your worth in coins.”
As an afterthought, he added, “Your parents certainly do.”

###

“We have very few pictures of any of us.” She lifted one of the many cabinet cards of General Tom Thumb. “Papa always liked them better.”

###

The subtitle of WE ARE ALL HIS CREATURES: TALES OF PT BARNUM, THE GREATEST SHOWMAN is a bit misleading, as the eleven loosely connected short stories gathered in these pages are only marginally about PT Barnum. Rather, Noyes concerns herself with the people trapped in Barnum’s orbit, and imagines how his actions might have affected them.

Naturally, this is a pretty complicated subject: while Barnum arguably created gainful (and even profitable) means of employment for disabled folks who, in some cases, were considered “burdens” on their families, his exhibits leaned into racist, sexist, and albeist tropes, thus perpetuating the bigotry that drove many of Barnum’s performers into his arms. Though he was an outspoken abolitionist later in life, Barnum quite literally built his career on the back of Joice Heth, an elderly African-American slave who Barnum purchased and exhibited as “the 161-year-old nursing mammy of George Washington.” He even exploited Heth in death, offering her body up for a public, for-pay autopsy to “prove” her age and authenticity.

Given this, I expected that Noyes would elevate the voices of the performers who both prospered and suffered under Barnum’s thumb. Instead, there’s a mix of perspectives here: while some stories are told from the POV of performers (or their friends and family), the majority of the narrators – 6/11 – are Barnum’s female family members. The stories cross a nearly fifty-year time span and often occur at crucial (and tragic) moments in Barnum’s timeline:

The Mermaid (1842)
Caroline, the eldest of the Barnum girls, is itching to see her father’s newest acquisition: the Feejee mermaid, being displayed several floors above the family’s living quarters in the American Museum. Since daddy has precious little time for her, she’s determined to take matters into her own hands.

The Mysterious Arm (1842)
Young Charlie Stratton, who will eventually come to be known as General Tom Thumb, has just been recruited by PT Barnum. As he stays at the Museum, training for his upcoming European tour, Charlie befriends the Barnum sisters – including baby Frances and her older sister Helen.

Returning a Bloom to Its Bud (1845)
Charity Barnum, long-suffering wife of PT Barnum, pregnant with her fourth child and grieving the loss of her third, reflects on her life as she sets sail for the States after eight months spent touring Europe with her husband and his performers.

Beside Myself (1851)
When young Josephine agreed to tour the county with her childhood friend Jenny Lind, aka the “Swedish Nightingale,” she had no idea that it would mean losing herself – or the man that she loves.

We Will Always Be Sisters (1852)
Helen, now a young woman living on her father’s estate in Connecticut (Iranistan), is haunted by the ghost of her baby sister Frances – and by her older sister Caroline’s upcoming nuptials.

The Fairy Wedding (1863)
Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, inadvertently finds that his visit to the White House is set to coincide with the visit of Charles Stratton and Lavinia Warren Stratton, as part of their three-year “honeymoon” tour, stopping in DC at Mary Todd’s request. Angry with his parents’ insistence that he not take up arms against the Confederacy, and still grieving the loss of his younger brother Willie, Robert’s disgust with the affair forces him to confront his relationship with his parents, as well as his own humanity (or lack thereof).

An Extraordinary Specimen of Magnified Humanity (1865)
It’s just another day for Anna Swan, a giantess from Nova Scotia who left her job as a teacher to join Barnum’s troupe: brunch with her friend Lavinia Warren Stratton, a lecture or two, and bedtime. And then a fire ravages the American Museum, killing most of Barnum’s nonhuman menagerie, nearly trapping Anna in its flames, and displacing them all.

The Bearded Lady’s Son (1868)
Sixteen-year-old Jack is the illegitimate son of a bearded lady who just landed a spot in Barnum’s roster. Trouble is, they’ve got to keep his existence a secret – Barnum can’t risk any whiff of impropriety in a show that struggles to avoid the margins. So Jack spends his days sketching the animals in Barnum’s menagerie…animals who, once again, are about to stoke the (literal) fire of Barnum’s vanity.

It’s Not Humbug If You Believe It (1869)
On the eve of William Mumler’s trial for fraud – at which her own father, none other than PT Barnum, is set to testify for the prosecution – Pauline commissions Mumler to take a spirit self-portrait of her. She hides it in a book in her father’s library, where it will sit for more than twenty years.

All Elephants Are Tragic (1889)
As the family gathers at the Barnum property in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to witness the demolition of the Waveport cottage to make way for the Marina house – Barnum’s gift to his second, much-younger wife Nancy – the newest, arguably most vilified member of the Barnums reflects on her fifteen years with PT Barnum, his daughters, and their children.

What Makes You Think We Want You Here? (1891)
Told from the perspective of Barnie – really named Helen after her mother, and then renamed by Barnum once he became estranged from Helen the elder – the Barnums have gathered at the deathbed of the family’s larger-than-life patriarch: to say goodbye, and to reminisce.

While the writing is skilled enough, and some of the stories engaging (the recurring theme of fire is especially compelling), the overall result just fell flat for me. I feel like this is something I should have enjoyed, thoroughly, and yet…and yet. With few exceptions, it’s weirdly boring and lacking in emotion.

I was disappointed that Noyes didn’t focus exclusively on the performers, even though not all of their narratives proved all that memorable.

Centering the women in Barnum’s life might also have worked out well, but mostly it felt like the stories didn’t go much of anywhere.

Honestly, I think the most eloquent writing manifests in Noyes’s narratives surrounding the nonhuman exhibits who suffered and died agonizing deaths in the multiple fires that destroyed Barnum’s museums over the years. For example, in “An Extraordinary Specimen of Magnified Humanity” Anna Swan bears witness to the deaths of countless animals – snakes, cats, moneys – even as she fights to overcome her shock-induced paralysis and save herself:

“She sailed and swayed over the sea of hats in the street, yet another audience, a uniform mass applauding with joy, it seemed, such joy — as much because some kind soul had released the birds from the aviary upstairs, and almost as one they burst from a corresponding window, a wheeling, feathered blur: parrots, cockatoos, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, vultures, and eagles, even the great, stiff, clumsy condor. The crowd in the street seemed to sway with them as they flapped free, and for the instant Anna floated on air as her rescue crew paused to take in the sight, and for the merest instant she felt it, too, swaying there, the beauty of the moment.”

Also heart wrenching is the tale of Jumbo the elephant, purchased from the London Zoo to tour in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, who sacrificed himself in a railway collision to save the life of a young calf. For his heroics, his corpse is dismembered and put on display by Barnum, exploited as a commodity even in death as “the Double Jumbo.” (Talk about a callback!) In “All Elephants Are Tragic,” second wife and “interloper” Nancy Fish considers her husband’s oh so brief mourning period and his shameful treatment of a “friend”:

“As another of her husband’s British “acquisitions,” Nancy identified with Jumbo. […]

“A year after the loss of Jumbo, the circus’s Winter Quarters in Bridgeport, the biggest animal training ground in the world, was leveled by fire, killing most of the animals. All Nancy remembered of that night was that poor Gracie the elephant had tried to swim to safety … making it all the way to the lighthouse before she sank under the waves. All elephants were tragic, it seemed to Nancy, captives stolen from their homes and made to perform against their wild natures.”

THIS. This is the content I came here for. Immerse me in a chapter written from the perspective of one of Barnum’s nonhuman performers, the most long-suffering of them all. The fishes and monkeys forcibly joined to make the Feejee Mermaid (posthumously, obvs) perhaps, or the white whales boiled to death in their tank. Maybe Helen’s cranky old cat, banished to the Museum by Charity, never to be seen again.

Give me an act of nonhuman rebellion, or a whisper of feminist solidarity between h. sapiens and the furred and feathered creatures: for we are all their (read: the capitalist patriarchy’s) creatures.

I would describe this book as a boring take on what is often considered an exciting time with a group of interesting characters. The interlinked short stories were directionless. Some I would describe as pointless since I’m not sure what the end goal was.

Sadly, this book might cause teens and young readers to become disinterested in the subject because the stories are not captivating and the characters feel lifeless.

I was excited to read this, but after reading the first few stories I quickly lost that excitement and considered not finishing this many times.

I liked the photographs and quotes that were included before each story. And, though I really did not care for the book overall, I thought the portrayal of P.T. Barnum was refreshing. To see him through others eyes.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy. Opinions are my own.

Struggled with this one a bit. Felt choppy but I also really expected more of a Greatest Showman vibes kinda read. This felt dark and dreary and I lost interest here and there.

Thank you NetGalley and Candlewick Press for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Description
In a series of interwoven fictionalized stories, Deborah Noyes gives voice to the marginalized women in P. T. Barnum’s family — and the talented entertainers he built his entertainment empire on.

Much has been written about P. T. Barnum — legendary showman, entrepreneur, marketing genius, and one of the most famous nineteenth-century personalities. For those who lived in Barnum’s shadow, however, life was complex. P. T. Barnum’s two families — his family at home, including his two wives and his daughters, and his family at work, including Little People, a giantess, an opera singer, and many sideshow entertainers — suffered greatly from his cruelty and exploitation. Yet, at the same time, some of his performers, such as General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton), became wealthy celebrities who were admired and feted by presidents and royalty. In this collection of interlinked stories illustrated with archival photographs, Deborah Noyes digs deep into what is known about the people in Barnum’s orbit and imagines their personal lives, putting front and center the complicated joy and pain of what it meant to be one of Barnum’s “creatures.”

Interesting tale of all the creatures!

I received this ARC courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

Pros: The stories were short, and were accompanied by a picture from Barnum's collection that related to the story.

Cons: I could not bring myself to care about any of the characters in the short stories. There didn't seem to be much point to many of the stories, other than to describe a fragment of their day to day life or a fairly insignificant event. Nothing was really fleshed out, most didn't have much backstory, and while several characters appeared in multiple stories, you don't really get to know them. There was no emotional pull. It was unflattering towards Barnum and his family, and even if the writer's assessment of their character is true, it isn't very interesting. There wasn't anything provocative or racy to make you WANT to read about Barnum's failings as a husband, father, and entertainer, and overall it was bland. Maybe I would be more impressed if I hadn't first seen The Greatest Showman. The movie may not be true to character for P.T. Barnum, but at least it was fun.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a honest review.

I've always been deeply intrigued by P.T. Barnum AND the circus, so this book was a must-have for me. We Are All His Creatures is actually a work of fiction based upon the performers P.T. Barnum had in his circus show. and his family. It's more of a short story collection. It was a fast, easy read for me.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 4.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

After watching The Greatest Showman, it's been interesting separating fact from fiction about P.T. Barnum and his larger-than-life circus. We Are All His Creatures is a work of historical fiction- a collection of short stories based on performers and Barnum's family that attempts to shed light on Barnum and his entertainment empire. An interesting concept but this one just wasn't for me. While I sympathized with some of the characters, most of the characters fell flat and I struggled to connect with most of them here and they were easily forgettable (I couldn't keep track nor differ most of the people mentioned). I didn't find the plot of any story particularly compelling and ultimately, did not feel like this added much to understanding Barnum as a person and wasn't interested in anything while reading this book.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Candlewick Press publishers for providing a free ARC